1. 1 Astronomy: What is the fascination? Presented by Jim Burnell

2. 2 Nearly everything we see in the sky is part of the great cycle of stellar birth, life, death and rebirth.

3. 3 Our fascination with astronomy stems from our own quest to understand our place in the universe.

4. 4 The Birth of a Star Stars are born in groups, inside huge clouds of gas and dust. These star forming regions are called nebulae The earliest nebulae contained only Hydrogen and Helium, and a trace of Lithium

5. 5 NGC2237 – The Rosette Nebula

6. 6 M8 – The Lagoon Nebula

7. 7 M42 – The Orion Nebula

8. 8 IC1396

9. 9 VdB 142 – The Elephant’s Trunk Nebula

10. 10 M16 – The Eagle Nebula

11. 11 Nebulae Spiral galaxies, like our own Milky Way are filled with these nebulae. The nebula are formed by denisty waves that compress the gas and dust in the interstellar medium. They trace out the spiral arms.

12. 12 M31 – The Great Andromeda Galaxy

13. 13 M33 – The Pinwheel Galaxy

14. 14 M51 – The Whirlpool Galaxy

15. 15 NGC253 – The Silver Dollar Galaxy

16. 16 NGC5198 – Centaurus A

17. 17 The Life of a Star Most stars are born in groups called clusters. Over time, these clusters often dissipate, spreading the stellar family across the galaxy. Stars like our sun live for ~ 10 billion years.

18. 18 M45 – The Pleiades

19. 19 M24 – The Sagittarius Star Cloud

20. 20 NGC2477

21. 21 The Double Cluster

22. 22 M46

23. 23 The Death of a Star: a Peaceful Death Most stars die a gentle death, burning their hydrogen, then their Helium and then ejecting their outer layers. This forms a so-called Planetary Nebula. Planetary Nebulae are some of the most beautiful objects in the universe.

24. 24 M27 – The Dumbell Nebula

25. 25 NGC7293 – The Helix Nebula

26. 26 M76 – The Little Dumbell Nebula

27. 27 M57 – The Ring Nebula (taken by the HST)

28. 28 The Death of a Star: a Violent Death Large stars die a spectacular death, exploding in a Supernova. The energy expended in a supernova can briefly exceed all the energy radiated by the host galaxy. Thousands of years after the explosion, a cloud of debris expands many lightyears into nearby space, dissipating.

29. 29 M1 – The Crab Nebula

30. 30 The Veil Nebula

31. 31 Simeis 147 – Supernova Remnant in Taurus

32. 32 Supernovae: Fathers of the Next Generation of Stars Though the death of a star in a supernova explosion is the most violent activity in the universe, it is the furnace in which the heavier elements are forged. The supernova explosions seeds the interstellar medium with these heavy elements Out of them the next generation of stars is reborn.

33. 33 Supernovae: The Precursors of Life These heavy elements are a critical part of plant and animal (and human) life.

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